Up and running

We bit the bullet and got a new printer today.... another HP and it is incredibly fast. Even better, it is networked so that Brian can print something wirelessly from his laptop. We were never able to do this before; we always had to unplug the printer from my desktop and connect it to the laptop. This is just too cool.

It was a nice day today. The kids all enjoyed a lot of outdoor time with their friends. I helped Brian get the shed put together and also managed to get a couple of loads of laundry folded. In addition, I got to visit with one of the neighbors and help her finish a jigsaw puzzle she'd been working on for a while.

We were so busy with all the running and doing that we opted for takeout for dinner (Godfather's... mmmm). Tomorrow instead of eating out after church, we'll come home and Brian is going to grill.

The kids are all bathed and tucked in for the night, and I will be following suit very soon.

Mac mama

I know... where have I been? It has been crazier than usual around here. The end of last week was fairly busy, what with Emily gone to her school retreat from Wednesday till Friday. Then Brian and I had the Celebrate Recovery kickoff at church on Friday night. We got there early to help set up, so we were basically there about 4 1/2- 5 hours.

Saturday was Joel's 7th birthday. We had a great time at the base bowling alley with a few of the neighbor kids, a couple of friends from church, and a couple of kids from our "backyard neighbor" family from the first house we lived in out here. Joel said it was the "best birthday ever." He even rated it higher than the one he spent at Disney World!

In news almost as big as Joel's birthday.... my IMac arrived yesterday! It is up and running with no trouble at all and I've managed to get my bookmarks and email addresses all transferred quite easily (thank goodness for Plaxo). I kinda miss my "right-click," but have begun learning the Mac way of doing things. I have so much more space on my desk now. Hopefully I can keep it uncluttered.

Monday night, Halle and I both went up to the church for rehearsals for the Christmas program for church. She is going to be part of the kids' musical and I will be singing in the adult Christmas choir. I missed the first rehearsal last week, but it won't be difficult to catch up. Thankfully, I don't have to learn it all by ear; we all have songbooks with musical notation. That certainly makes it easier for me, especially since I sing alto.

Tonight, Halle attended her first AWANA meeting while Brian and I attended a "growth group" from church. Our group is made up of about 6 couples... not too big and not too small. I'm looking forward to getting to know people better. Halle had a blast at AWANA and is busy working on learning her memory verses so she can get her first book and t-shirt. She has several "checkpoints" to complete, each with 2 verses to learn.

Tomorrow is hump day and means we will be on the downswing.... Brian has a meeting tomorrow night, though. Thursday will be Emily's early-out day at school (1:45), I may be attending worship team rehearsal that night, and then it will be Friday and time for Celebrate Recovery again. Oh yeah... no shortage of things to do here. Hopefully I won't put off blogging for another week!

Oh, I just remembered more news... Emily was chosen for Daybreak, the select choir at her school! Yay, Emily!

Road trip

Brian and I headed northeast to Sacramento today with the 3 younger kids (Emily stayed home with the dogs). We had planned to attend the homeschool conference in Modesto yesterday afternoon and today, but decided to save the money on hotel and conference fees... plus, I just wasn't feeling all that great about leaving Emily alone for 2 days and 1 night with the dogs. (Yes, the base is very safe... I think I was worried more about the dogs than I was Emily!) Anyhow, I'd been wanting to go to A Brighter Child (a homeschool supply store) for a while now, and today provided a good opportunity for it. I was able to pick up a few things for school this fall; now I just have to figure out where to keep it! And I'm not done yet, either. I still have some decisions to make; hopefully I can get it figured out in the next couple of weeks or so.

Once we finished up there, we headed over to Arden Fair to have a look-see. We spent quite a bit of time at the Apple Store... hopefully they didn't have to mop the floors after we left; we were salivating at the 20" IMacs and the MacBooks. I think it is safe to say that the question is not "Will we switch to Macs?" but "When will we switch to Macs?" I'm pretty sure it will be before the end of the year.

I imagine tomorrow we'll be working around here... we still have a couple of boxes to figure out what to do with, plus we haven't hung anything on the walls yet. It would be nice if we could at least get started with that. I know I have some laundry to do as well. Of course, there won't be a whole lot of time to work on it, what with church in the a.m. and then Rory's puppy class at 6pm. But we'll see what we can do.